James D. Kirby saved Jerry L. Dennis and helped to save three others from drowning, Miamisburg, Ohio, March 10, 1973. When two motorboats in which they were riding capsized below a dam in the Great Miami River, Dennis, 35, and four other men were caught in the rolling boil of water. Kirby, 56, job setter, went to their aid in a rowboat and reached a mass of accumulated debris below the dam, where Dennis grasped the stern of the boat. After taking Dennis to the bank with difficulty, Kirby started back to the dam but lost an oar. Returning to the bank, he obtained a paddle and had a rope tied to the boat. As men on the bank held the other end of the rope, Kirby, using the oar and accompanied by a fireman using the paddle, took the boat back into the rolling boil. Another of the men in the water grasped the boat, which then was pulled to the bank by means of the rope. Kirby and the fireman again took the boat back into the turbulence below the dam, where one man by then had drowned. The boat reached the debris and then, with the last two men holding to it, was pulled back to the bank.
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